Thursday, September 19, 2013

Festival at the Farm November 15 and 16th showcases Arizona wines

November 2013 is the time to enjoy the bounty of Arizona's wine country.

Kent Callaghan, winemaker with Callaghan Vineyards and a
pioneer in the Arizona wine industry, compared the 2013 harvest season to the
1992 and 2006 harvest years - wet
and late but great quality potential. Harvest 2013 is more than half over for
most Arizona wineries. Vineyards located at low elevations such as Charron
Vineyards in Vail, Arizona (just southeast of Tucson) start bringing in their
grapes in mid-August, and the higher elevation vineyards will be harvesting
into October.

At Lawrence
Dunham Vineyards, over 15 tons of Viognier has been harvested, and according to
Curt Dunham, owner/winemaker, there is another 10-12 tons still in the vineyard
for which he is trying to find buyers. “I would have never guessed that we
would be harvesting this much Viognier in mid-September when we harvested
Viognier in 2012 in mid-August,” said Dunham. “After last week’s hail storm, I
am thrilled to have grapes to harvest.” He reported some damage to the vine
canopies but notto the grapes.

All
the vineyards across Arizona have commented on the amount of rain and cloudy
days that have occurred late in the season. The cloudy days have made it
difficult for the grapes to ripen and caused significant bunch rot. Many of the
vineyards have had to cut back the vine canopies so that the sun can penetrate
the grape-filled vines to encourage increased brix (or sugar levels).

Flying
Leap Vineyards is experiencing their first harvest from their vineyards in
Cochise County and Elgin. Mark Beres, one of Flying Leaps owners, said they
still have not harvested a single grape from their Elgin vineyard because the
sugar levels have not risen to where they want them to be. “However, the story
for this year’s harvest is certainly how early we picked at our vineyard in Cochise
County,” Beres exclaimed. “Who would ever have imagined that we’d be harvesting
Grenache at 23.6 brix levels on August 10th?”

Kief
Manning, winemaker at Kief-Joshua Vineyards in Sonoita, said that harvest was
going well. “Our vineyard had good fruit set and the quality looks great”
Manning said. “I think it is better than last year which was good and it
followed two bad years with hail in 2010 and a series of spring frosts in
2011.”

Page Springs Cellars, located in
the Verde Valley, reports processing 80 of an expected 125-ton harvest. Like Southeastern
Arizona, it has been a wet season in Northern Arizona causing an increase in
predation and rot issues over 2012. However, the monsoon weather has been very
localized, and Page Springs Cellars reports that they have some amazing fruit
namely Dos Padres Syrah (third leaf), Stage Stop Shiraz, and House Mountain
Petite Sirah.

“We’re really excited about the
potential of some of these young Northern Arizona vineyards,” said Page Springs
Cellars’ winemaker Matt Rollain. “Despite the frost issues experienced earlier
this year at our Colibri Vineyards in the Chiricahua Mountains, the Syrah (low
yield) and Mourvedre (high yield) look amazing,” Rollain said.

Though harvest is not yet over,
winemakers have their fingers crossed that it is going to be a good year both
in quantity and quality of the wine grapes. Some of the vineyards will wrap up
harvest in early October where efforts shift to the winery.

Arizona wines have received much recognition
this past year with wines made from Arizona-grown grapes receiving high marks
from nationally-respected publications and wines winning prestigious awards in
competitions with the best wines in the world. The number of vineyard acres is
growing, wine production is increasing, and the wine quality is being
recognized. The gallons of wine being produced in Arizona more than doubled from
2011 to 2012.

James Callahan, winemaker Rune
Wines + Halcyon Vineyards, see a bumper crop because of the long hang time even
with two major rain events. “For the first time there is a lot of fruit for
sale,” he said.

Peggy Fiandaca, President of the
Arizona Wine Growers Association, said “The opportunities of the Arizona wine
industry are great, and there is no reason that the wine industry cannot be the
next billion dollar wine region like Washington and Oregon.”“The Arizona wine industry is excited about the
2013 growing season as well as the recognition the industry is receiving which boosts
Arizona’s image as a quality winemaking region,” Fiandaca said.

The Arizona wine industry will
celebrate the fruits of their labor at the annual Festival at the Farm November
15 and 16 at the Farm at South Mountain. The Arizona Republic announces the winners of the annual wine
competition at a reception on Friday, November 15 at Quiessence Restaurant. The
festival on Saturday is where participants can taste the award-winning wines,
sample wines and talk to winemakers from around the state, attend educational
seminars, listen to music, enjoy a picnic lunch under the Pecan trees, and
hopefully walk away with the winning bid for an incredible live/silent wine
auction packages.

How do I start? First of all, I have to say that I had an absolutely fabulous time touring Boise, Idaho for upcoming articles in Wander With...

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This blog highlights destinations, experiences and products I feel readers will enjoy. In all cases, I have written my honest opinion about my experiences. Your experience may differ. In some cases I have been hosted for these experiences.

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